COMMENTARY: NRA Candidate Wants Jesse Jackson’s Seat

“I only have one child left,” Chambers told the Chicago Tribune at the time, “and I’m afraid that (the killing) won’t stop until he’s gone too.”

On Monday, President Barack Obama told a group of law enforcement officials that gun control is one of his administration’s top priorities in an effort to save lives and keep young people safe.

“It means passing serious laws that restrict the access and availability of assault weapons and magazine clips that aren’t necessary for hunters and sportsmen and those responsible gun owners who are out there,” Obama said at the White House. “It means that we are serious about universal background checks. It means that we take seriously issues mental health and school safety.”

Obama said that Americans “also recognize that it’s not only the high-profile mass shootings that are of concern here, it’s also what happens on a day-in-day-out basis in places like Chicago or Philadelphia, where young people are victims of gun violence every single day.”

Meanwhile in Chicago, Halverson, a self-proclaimed conservative Democrat, has received support from the NRA in both of her previous races for Congress. So can an NRA-sanctioned candidate who is anti-gun control be a genuine champion for black residents who are deeply concerned about the skyrocketing black-on-black homicide rate in Chicago?

Many black Democrats say Halverson is far too conservative to support gun control legislation – a position backed by most of the black residents in the district that Halverson wants to represent.

“The NRA gives Debbie Halvorson an ‘A’ rating,” Michael Pfleger, a Roman Catholic priest and gun control activist in Chicago, told POLITICO. “That tells me she should not be the representative from the 2nd District. If she gets an ‘A’ rating from the NRA, she gets an ‘F’ from me.”

It’s hard to imagine Halvorson representing such a liberal district with such a decidedly conservative ideology. Halvorson admits that she voted with congressional Republicans 88 times between 2009 and 2011.